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He rides like a field-marshal too, and that gray horse has ginger in his heels!" remarked Jean, as the officer was riding at a rapid gallop up the long, white road of Charlebourg. "He is going to Beaumanoir, belike, to see the Royal Intendant, who has not returned yet from his hunting party."
About the hour that La Corriveau emerged from the gloomy woods of Beauport, on her return to the city, the night of the murder of Caroline, two horsemen were battering at full speed on the highway that led to Charlebourg. Their dark figures were irrecognizable in the dim moonlight.
"Well," said Edward, "they seem to have something to brag of about you here in these beautiful villages:" and he pointed towards Beauport and Charlebourg, whose white houses, green fields, and churches, seem to promise every thing that poets have dreamed of village simplicity, peace, and contentment.
But Cadet was born in Charlebourg; he knew every path, glade, and dingle in the forest of Beaumanoir, and rode on without drawing bridle. Bigot, in his fiery eagerness, had hitherto ridden foremost. Cadet now led the way, dashing under the boughs of the great trees that overhung the road. The tramp of their horses woke the echoes of the woods.
Suddenly, like a voice from the spirit world, the faint chime of the bells of Charlebourg floated on the evening breeze: it was the Angelus, calling men to prayer and rest from their daily labor.
Charles, he had a country house about five miles distant, a massive old stone building in the woods at the foot of the mountain of Charlebourg; its ruins are now known as Chateau Bigot. In its day it was called the Hermitage; though the uses to which it was applied savored nothing of asceticism.
His good taste discarded perukes and powder, although very much in fashion in those days. It was long since he had travelled on the highway of Charlebourg, and he thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the road he traversed.
"Yes, Master Pothier, and I have promised Zoe a three-days wedding, which will make her the envy of all the parish of Charlebourg. The seigneur has consented to give her away in place of her poor defunct father; and when he does that he is sure to stand godfather for all the children, with a present for every one of them! I shall invite you too, Master Pothier!"
Across the broad valley of the St. Charles, covered with green fields and ripening harvests, and dotted with quaint old homesteads, redolent with memories of Normandy and Brittany, rose a long mountain ridge covered with primeval woods, on the slope of which rose the glittering spire of Charlebourg, once a dangerous outpost of civilization.
"Madame!" said he, "I thought I knew all roads about Charlebourg, but I have either forgotten or they have changed the road through the forest to Beaumanoir. It is surely altered from what it was." "Your Honor is right," answered Dame Bedard, "the Intendant has opened a new road through the forest."
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